April Fool's
by ChromaticDreams
Summary: Stan's attempt at an April Fool's prank aboard the Stan O' War goes terribly wrong.


_AN: A short lil' thing I originally wrote for my tumblr. After a few weeks I still liked it enough to fix a few little things, and wanted to finally post it here._

 _I intend to write an aftermath for this, which is why it's listed as incomplete, but I honestly have no idea when I'll finish that. The agonies of being an inconstantly scheduled writer, oh no! :OO_

* * *

 _April Fool's_

Stanley Pines hummed merrily as his gnarled knuckles wrapped around the sink tap and twisted it on. Lukewarm water slowly began to pour from the facet, drumming against the base of his metal bucket with a resonant ring. He nearly winced at how _loud_ the initial rush of water was, but he supposed the noise couldn't be helped. If he were lucky, his nerd brother would find himself so absorbed in studying and cataloging their latest catch that he wouldn't find any iota of suspicion in his current doings…

He doubted Ford remembered, but today marked April first. April Fool's Day. One of their favorite days as kids. Forty plus years prior, they took great pleasure in springing pranks on each other and their family that day. Young Stan aimed for the classics- whoopee cushion under his father's seat at dinner, Groucho Marx glasses at the temple, smearing whipped cream over Ford's face when he was sleeping- the list of practical jokes was nearly endless. Ford, on the other hand, was more of a Rube Goldberg machine kind of guy. He'd spend weeks engineering and constructing elaborate set-ups that would fling those plastic slinky snakes at Ma from across the room when her heel hit a tripwire hidden in the carpet. Oh man, they could laugh for hours at the sheer variety of treacherous gags they've pulled on this day!

However, he and Ford hadn't gotten to terrorize each other with stupid pranks since they were seventeen. Truth be told, this was one of the things he missed most about their relationship. While they'd long since made up, and while Stan recognized they were still working towards rekindling their brotherhood, he longed for the day when he stopped feeling like he was constantly tiptoeing around Ford. He longed for the day his brother stopped treating him like fragile glass. And his hope was that cracking a classic, harmless prank might help with those issues. Remind them of their past a little. To remind them that a little poking fun at each other is okay.

"Doo-doo-doo da-doo, filling a big metal bucket full of water," he muttered to himself in a sing-song voice as the tap continued to pour, "so I can dump it on my twin bro's head!"

Stan faintly recalled pulling a similar prank when they were nine. He poured a tray of ice cubes down the back of Ford's shirt. His brother shrieked like a five-year-old girl at first, and then proceeded to chuck the ice right back at him, giggling the whole time. Their Ma threw a fit when she found the watery mess their feud left in the kitchen, but it was worth it for the laughs.

Man, he hoped they could both get a similar chuckle out of this. He always loved the sound of Ford's laughter.

Stanley waited until the water filled the bucket, and promptly shut off the tap. With a labored grunt, he hefted the bucket out of the sink and onto the floor, wincing at the way his joints creaked as he straightened his back. Step one was complete.

Step two was to simply smoke ol' Sixer out of his hive, get into place, and wait for the perfect moment…

* * *

"Hey Sixer, get out here, would ya'? There's somethin' all spooky like out in the water. I think it might be another one a' those… uh, another one of 'em seven headed squid things?"

"Mmm, coming," Ford muttered distractedly, eyes securely fixed on the half-filled parchment before him and the nerve sample suspended in a vial of formaldehyde upon the desk. The sample came from the thirteen-armed serpent they conquered a week prior. From all the taxonomic scientific literature he'd referenced while conducting his study, the creature seemingly had not yet been discovered by marine scientists. Excitingly, this meant that he would be tasked with naming this new strange anomalous species, and with presenting his findings to the scientific community when they reached shore again.

The moment his pen touched to make the first stroke against roughhewn paper, Stan's gravelly voice filtered through the thin walls again.

"Ford, if ya' don't get your nerd ass out on deck in the next minute, I'm _feeding you_ to the squid!"

He tossed the fountain pen to the side of his journal and pushed himself out of his chair in one fluid motion. "All right, all right!" he hollered back.

Ford carded all twelve fingers through his thick greying hair, and rolled his eyes at the wooden ceiling with a heavy breath. God, what had gotten into Stanley today? He wasn't usually so unnerved about the magical creatures they encountered in this span of open sea. Hastily, he snagged one of his overcoats and a scarf from the coat hook by the door. He shrugged his shoulders through the long, padded sleeves as he crossed into the main cabin of their ship, and then wound the warm knit scarf— midnight blue and peppered with glitter for stars, Mabel's design— around his neck. His hand brushed against the comforting weight at the left of his hips, the titanium blaster he'd brought back with him from his journeys through the multiverse. He only had to use it once since his return home, and probably didn't need to lug it everywhere now that he wasn't constantly on the run from bounty hunters, but old habits die hard. Beyond that, in his first weeks back in Gravity Falls, he quickly discovered that the familiar weight helped ground him whenever he was griped with panic or fell into dissociation. **  
**  
He swung the cabin door open with caution. Cool, salty sea air filled his nose almost instantly, and tickled at the hair at his jawline and chin he'd allowed to grow slightly beyond stubble. (Any longer, and he might soon have a burgeoning beard just like Stanley's, he realized with a snort.) From first glance, the water seemed too calm to be hiding any large territorial creatures that might pose threat to their ship, but admittedly he had been woefully wrong in his assumptions before. Sea monsters were nothing but unpredictable, and especially those that had evaded oceanic cataloguers' sights all this time. Meanwhile, Stan was nowhere to be seen on deck—despite his call— proving nearly as evasive as their deep-sea cryptids.

Ford had just opened his mouth to call for his brother when his sensitive ears picked up on the muted sound of liquid sloshing from above.

* * *

Barely holding in his laughter, Stanley— who knelt on the roof of the cabin right over the outer doorway— tipped his bucket over the edge. He watched with anticipation as the water cascaded down towards his brother's head.

If only he noticed earlier how Ford's dominant hand nervously twitched next to the holster at his hip as he exited the cabon, perhaps he would have possessed the good sense to leave him be.

If only he took account of the way his brother's entire body seized up milliseconds before the water's impact as if expecting an attack… perhaps he would have had time to duck.

* * *

The instant he heard it, it was as if his conscious mind drifted a thousand miles away. His legs were rooted to the deck. Distantly, Ford felt the lukewarm liquid hit his head, utterly flattening his hair and soaking through his overcoat and shirt all the way to skin. Heard a loud clap as the remaining fluid splashed onto the deck. It was warm. His imagination immediately brought images of the multitude of monolithic horrors he'd faced, especially the kinds that soaked their food in tepid stomach acid to aid in digestion before their victims were consumed. Suddenly midday turned into night, and the nebulous skies of alien worlds soared overhead. His vision became glassy and his pulse skyrocketed as the lifesaving mantra that consistently dominated his mind whilst beyond the portal took hold of his tense limbs.

 _Danger! Danger! Danger!_

From outside himself he watched his hand find the grip of his gun, tightening around the thick rubber. Watched his body fall easily into an offensive stance as he'd done _time after time after time_. He swung around, senses alight, brain conjuring any number of fearsome beasts from the scourges of his memory…

Finger on the trigger.

Hands shaking.

Eyelids squeezed shut. Muscles contracting.

Even though his mind felt miles away from the deck of the ship, the firing of the gun left a cacophony of ringing in his ears. The kickback shook his joints.

It was his brother's scream that finally knocked him back into himself.

" _AUGGH, goddamn_!"

With a heaving gasp, he was violently thrown into full awareness of his own body. He could barely push past his own quickened breaths to concentrate on the scene before him. His eyes panned from the gun he held in trembling hands, to the emptied bucket that had fallen onto deck, to above. To Stanley. Images of demons and leviathans and beasts shattered like glass, replaced by the sight of his own twin brother, cradling his left shoulder. He could already see blood pooling from in between his fingers.

"F- _fuck_ ," Stan hissed, tears rimming his reddened eyes.

Ford let out a choked sob as he realized what just happened, _what he just did_. The muscles of his right hand went slack, and the gun clattered onto the wooden deck. His lungs burned as his already hastened breathing turned into strained wheezing. Numbed fingers frantically pressed against his face, clawing at the frame of his glasses. He felt his legs propel him through the door, into his cabin, _away_. Heard Stan's voice hollering his name. Sensed his body folding in on itself, his hands griping harshly at his hair. A harsh ringing echoed through his ears, causing his head to seem heavy and the world he inhabited to feel little more than an elaborate, cruel facade.

 _Monster_ , he spat at himself. Clutching his knees tight to his chest and struggling to breathe, the man began to weep.


End file.
